Starmer reassures and worries on homelessness

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

If you’re looking for a chink of light ahead of the promised government strategy on homelessness, the number of homeless households living in bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) is down for the third quarter in succession.

But it’s only a chink since government figures for the end of March saw the total number of homeless households (131,140) and children (169,050) in temporary accommodation rise to new records. 

At the most expensive and temporary end of the spectrum, there were 3,870 families with children in B&Bs, down 28 per cent since Labour took power in July 2024. Of those, 2,300 had been there for longer than the six-week legal limit, a decline of 39 per cent. 

However, those falls were more than matched by an increase in the use of nightly paid, privately managed accommodation. This is also expensive and temporary but self-contained so that families do not have to share a bathroom and kitchen. 

This sub-sector took off after 2013 when the coalition government tried in vain to cut use of B&Bs and private landlords and management companies realised they could charge more on a nightly basis than for longer-term leases. 

Over the next seven years, the number of homeless households in nightly paid accommodation doubled and since 2020 it has almost doubled again to 46,710. Since Labour came to power the number of families with children in non-B&B nightly paid accommodation has increased by 27 per cent to 32,160.

Of those, more than half (17,810) had been there for more than a year and 14 per cent (4,640) for more than five years. 

By contrast, there were just under 25,990 households in private sector leased accommodation, roughly the same as in 2013 despite  a doubling in the total numbers in temporary accommodation overall. 

Trends like these highlight what’s at stake in the homelessness strategy both for homeless families stuck in temporary accommodation and for local authorities creaking under the strain of paying for it .

A scandal that calls for permanent solutions

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Think of all the elements of the grim inheritance bequeathed to this government by the last one and perhaps the grimmest is the almost 160,000 children living, and sometimes dying, in temporary accommodation.

Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali called it ‘an absolute scandal’ in the Commons on Monday and ‘devastating’ at a Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee  hearing on Tuesday. 

One committee member spoke of meeting a constituent before Christmas who had been in ‘temporary’ accommodation for 14 years, so the entire period of Conservative-led government between 2010 and 2024.

This morning a report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) calls it ‘unacceptable’ and ‘alarming’ that almost 6,000 homeless families with children are in bed and breakfast, the worst form of temporary accommodation that is no longer the last resort the guidance says it should be. 

Of those, almost 4,000 have been in B&B beyond the increasingly theoretical six-week legal limit, a figure that is 23 times higher than in 2010. 

It is a scandal that comes at a huge cost for local authorities: £3.1 billion a year for homelessness services, including £2.1 billion for temporary accommodation at the latest count.

All this should be enough on its own to condemn the Tory inheritance but it is just part of a broader failure highlighted by the PAC.

Why Labour must act after shameful Tory record on homelessness

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Another quarter, another new record in the number of homeless people and children living in temporary accommodation. 

Take any measure you like and the homelessness statistics published today are beyond grim.

There are now 123,100 households in temporary accommodation including 78,420 families with 159,380 children.

All of these numbers are moving in the wrong direction, up around 5 per cent in the last three months and 15 per cent on a year ago – and all of them are the highest ever recorded in statistics that go back 20 years or more. 

Within those numbers, there are 5,910 homeless families with children living in bed and breakfasts and – most shameful of all – 3,770 of them have been there beyond the six-week legal limit.

When local authorities are starting to shrug their shoulders as they break the law, pointing out plausibly that they have no other option, it must be a time for this government to act. 

Temporary accommodation, permanent shame

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Everywhere you look in the latest homelessness statistics, the scale of the crisis facing homeless families and local councils alike stares back at you.

The total number of homeless households in temporary accommodation (which can mean anything but) went past the record highs of the mid-2000s earlier this year and rose to another record of 105,750 in the 12 months to the end of June.

That’s up 1.2 per cent on the previous three months ago and 10.5 per cent on last year. The total included 68,070 families with 138,930 children (another record).

These figures are stark enough at a national level but in the worst-affected local authority, Newham, 50.2 out of every 1,000 households in Newham were in temporary accommodation.

But drill down further and the really shocking increases are in the numbers stuck at the most miserable end of the TA crisis in bed and breakfast hotels.